Pawar enters Congress presidential race

The Congress presidential race hotted up on Wednesday with Sharad Pawar filing his nomination for the top party post.

Simultaneously, another Maharashtra politician Abdul Rehman Antulay -- ironically, once a bitter Pawar rival -- announced the withdrawal of his nomination in Pawar's favour.

Several sets of nomination papers were also filed on behalf of Congress president Sitaram Kesri.

The process was started with Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Jitendra Prasada filing a set of nine nominations. It was soon followed by Jagdish Tytler, R K Dhawan and Choudhary Prem Singh.

Congress Working Committee member Rajesh Pilot is also in the fray. He filed his nomination on Tuesday. Wednesday was the last day for filing nominations and the withdrawals will close on June 2.

Pawar was accompanied by Antulay, V C Shukla, G Venkataswamy and Praful Patel to the Congress headquarters where he filed his nomination. Venkataswamy is perceived to be close to Kesri.

Later, talking to journalists at his home, Pawar stressed the need for revitalising the organisation from the grassroot level.

Over the years he said the party image had been sullied and it had to be corrected, adding that he would shortly release his manifesto for reviving the Congress.

He said it was surprising that the complete voters's lists, including that from Maharashtra was not made available till the last day for filing nominations.

Pawar said it was the first time in the history of the Congress that organisational election-related complaints were received on such a largescale by the AICC election cell.

Even the names of Youth Congress president Satyajit Singh Gaekwad and former Youth Congress leader Anand Sharma, he said, were missing from the list of Gujarat delegates/ members. ''If this sort of thing continues what message will we be giving to the youth of the country?'' he asked.

Asked whether he would again withdraw from the contest as he did in 1991, Pawar said, ''The past is past and it is not going to be repeated.''

When Venkatswamy was asked why he had deserted Kesri's camp, he said he had realised that the party could not win any election under Kesri's leadership.

Since Sonia Gandhi had declined to take up the party leadership, Venkatswamy said they had decided to support Pawar. He called for a one-to-one contest between Kesri and Pawar. He disclosed that discussions were on with Pilot to facilitate this.

Pilot released a six-page agenda on Tuesday, listing a litany of complaints against Kesri. He also unveiled his five-point programme for ushering in democratic functioning in the party. To rejuvenate the Congress, he said the present top-down approach should be replaced with a bottom-up outlook, giving greater importance to the ordinary party worker.

Instead of banking on charismatic leadership, the party should strive for collective leadership, a concept which is alien to the Congress culture, he said. The other points stressed by Pilot are: decentralising decision-making, bringing about transparency in all decisions/ actions and making the leadership more representative.

Taken at face value, all these points are admirable but whether they can be implemented is a totally different proposition. Read between the lines, these points indirectly castigate Kesri, implying that they are alien to his style of functioning.

Tara Shankar Sahay, UNI

EARLIER STORY:
Bihar MPs step up smear campaign against Kesri